IMMANUEL LUTHERAN CHURCH
COUNCIL MEETING
Notes
July 5, 2004

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Gathering

John called the meeting to order @ 7:10 p.m., and provided devotions.

Preparing

Due to the lack of a quorum, we began our meeting by learning about the “care and concern” needed in our congregation for specific members and others.

Property Issues

We also discussed the concern with the air conditioning units.  Over the last few weeks, it’s been noticed that the building just won’t cool down.  We need to have the Property Committee obtain a complete evaluation of the units, so that we can get them repaired.  Denise Lund will serve as the contact person for this issue, and advise the appropriate Property Committee representative, to confirm.

John also brought up the topic of replacing the carpet in the three classrooms, which will not be covered by insurance.  The additional cost is $2,000.  The Youth Committee has offered to pay this fee (they have some monies remaining in their current budget and the balance would come out of the Heirlines Fund).  We had some discussion on this topic, but could not make any recommendations on this issue, due to lack of quorum.

Discussion on Youth Task Force

The Youth Task Force met with Pastor Jamie Seagram-Bruning (sp), the Synod contact for Youth Ministry.  She reviewed the job description that we created, and thought that it was very well done, and clear in its intent.  She anticipated that an individual qualified for this position would have a Masters Degree with 20 years experience, and earn about $40,000.  It’s a huge job that can be done, but she suggested that the education “piece” not be included in our initial offering.  Instead, she suggested that we limit our scope of responsibility to the youth aspect.  If it is our congregation's goal and desire to build up to the initial job description (including the education piece), then the Council needs to look at this as a goal within 5 to 10 years – probably closer to 10 years.   If we removed the education piece, then anticipated that the current salary is marginally adequate. 

Further conversation resulted about building youth ministry around the “8 Faith Factors,” involving students along with their parents.  We discussed a retreat for all interested parties (parents, kids, interested adults, etc.), to explain our mission, vision, and build excitement among parents and others to encourage growth in the youth.  We can accomplish this on our own, without filling the job mentioned above.  Lynn Nolff has agreed to organize the retreat (she is a member of the Task Force), so the next step is to “go down the list” and target specific kids, parents, and then expand out to all the parents, and then invite the entire congregation to be a part of this.

Other issues

John gave a brief rundown of the status of the last Council work session, indicating that we are in the process of re-dividing the duties of each committee into the three categories described by our mission: Gathering; Preparing & Serving.  There have been many changes since our February retreat, as we have been re-evaluating & truly learning about ourselves and how we envision our future.  Our goal is to structure ourselves so that we do what our mission is – build the structure.  A by-product may be a restructuring of the Bylaws, but that is not our initial intent.

Serving

The next meeting is scheduled for July 19, at 7:00 p.m. for a work session, and the next regular Council Meeting is scheduled for August 2, at 7:00 p.m.  It is important that we have a quorum, so that we can accomplish our goals.

We closed with the Lord’s Prayer at 8:25 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Note: Copies of committee minutes and reports, as referred to in the Council Minutes, can be obtained in the church office.